Conservation has been hijacked. The culprits are both exploitative industries and supine governments. Their banner is the policy of sustainable use.

"Forget preservation of natural functioning ecosystems", they argue dogmatically. “It is not practical in the modern overcrowded world. For the socio-economic benefit of rural Africans and other human communities we have to sacrifice the conservation ideal.” How very convenient for the hunting industry.

Well, we've had this paradigm for decades now, long enough for us to see that sustainable use is not working. Wildlife populations are plunging all across Africa.Like a stolen car at a chop shop, African wilderness is being hacked into little pieces to be sold off for the highest profit.

In place of magnificent stretches of pristine wilderness where animals continue to evolve against each other as nature intended, we now have little fragments of land called ‘game farms’ where selected species are bred and kept like sheep or cattle. "Active management" is the euphemism for this ghastly parody of conservation.

Picture this:

here is a rhino farm; a piece of land where rhinos are being bred. You can see rhinos and even shoot them if you have the money and that is your pleasure.

over there is a lion farm. There you can pet cubs and shoot lions too.

on another fragment of land is a buffalo farm, breeding animals with out-sized horns because that is what the hunters want.

And over there is a tree farm, where for an entrance fee, you can admire plantations of imposing indigenous trees, which used to grace the wilderness but which were chopped down for firewood by local inhabitants in order to cook the meat from the poached animals.

provincial game reserves host prides of "wild" lions, many with radio collars around their necks. "Actively managing" their numbers should be done scientifically, but the tourist lodges will not allow the females to be contracepted, because tourists want to see cubs all the time. The result is a surplus of lions for the available prey base, allowing the reserves to profit yet again by offering lion hunts.

This is not the future. I am describing SA conservation here and now. It is all about money. Wildlife must pay for itself. Protecting wilderness for its own sake, and for that of future generations is "elitist".

Extinction looms for many species. Scarce funding is squandered on wasteful talk shops like COP 17. While anti-poaching units struggle to provide boots for their rangers, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on useless debate about whether this species should be moved from this Appendix to that, when enforcement of such technicalities is so poor that it really makes no difference. Lions are Appendix 11, leopards are listed as Appendix 1. Yet permits to hunt and export the trophies from both species drop like confetti from useless SA conservation structures.Wildlife numbers continue to plunge. The only elephant that is not threatened is the fat white elephant – CITES.

We need a new conservation paradigm. Sustainable use has become sustained abuse. A return to rigid protection of wilderness and the politically difficult expansion of wilderness areas to allow for the migration routes of old, is the only way to arrest the disastrous decline in unspoiled wilderness and wildlife numbers.

If we fail to raise the bar of protection for wildlife populations then they will be driven to extinction. Those animals that survive the slaughter will find a fate worse than death, domesticated, living artificial lives in fenced camps as alternative livestock and being truly treated as human commodities. The "wild" is being taken away from wildlife as I write. This is an unintended consequence of the doctrine of sustainable use.In my life time in Africa I have personally witnessed the wanton destruction of the greatest show on Earth. As a child, I learnt to play golf on a small town golf course in Zambia where it was not unusual to see lions roaming around the course. Now you can travel for hours in Southern Africa and not see a living thing – just miles and miles of barbed wire fences.

I cannot see African governments finding the political will to stamp out poaching and trespassing by local inhabitants and their livestock, let alone extending the parks to join up fragments of land into one meaningful whole. "Forced removals", “putting animals before people”, “neo-colonialism” etc - can you not just hear the angry accusations by political agitators?Besides, why would governments ‘waste’ public funds – funds that could be better spent on buying patronage and political capital, executive jets and luxury cars, than on protecting voter-less wild places, when they can abandon these to the hunters and call such destructive activities "conservation".

People vote; animals do not. Democracy becomes tyranny in time, as the Greek philosophers remind us. For animals, the tyranny has always been there. It just gets worse. And animals are the sentinel species on the planet. Their fate today will be ours tomorrow.

For those of us with eyes to see it is all happening right now, right in front of us.

it is imperative of all of africa to PRESERVE,, not destroy what species remain . south africa is the worst of all, they do not appreciate the beauty of the country and the species that live there. south africans themselves must put laws into place to preserve what is left. forget canned hunting, the worst of the so called sports. it is cruel and inhumane. sa is a dirty word to many of us who see what you had and lost through your selfish inhumane desires.

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Carol Pickard

11/6/2016 04:25:45 am

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Jacqui Thomas

11/6/2016 04:29:38 am

The sad truth is at present is that most people in the world are totally unaware of what is happening and when we do realise this truth is so terrible we feel impotent to do anything. I appeal to all those who are able to make this public by writing to MP's and all those who have the power to make changes and also to inform as many people as possible in schools and in the tourist industry so positive transformation can happen.

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Terry Hodson

11/6/2016 04:57:14 am

Excellent summary of what wildlife conservation has become. Now Kruger is going to be used as a meat factory for surrounding communities. It is the end of times.

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C pipkin

11/6/2016 10:42:38 am

We have no right to kill, take the lives, use or imprison any of earth's creatures..we must protect, preserve and respect them all..

Dear Chris,
Thank you for your interesting blog post. However, I do not recognise any of the elements of what I view as "sustainable use" in your characterisation here.

While there are a number of definitions of SU, all definitions include the idea of use of components of biodiversity only in a manner and at a rate that is consistent with conservation of biodiversity for the long term.

Many definitions emphasise the idea of use of biodiversity by humans in a careful and moderate way providing incentives for conservation, motivated by the concerns behind your observation that "I cannot see African governments finding the political will to stamp out poaching and trespassing by local inhabitants and their livestock, let alone extending the parks to join up fragments of land into one meaningful whole." Where done well, sustainable use has managed to achieve precisely this.

Please note also that canned lion hunting (which is opposed by IUCN) has nothing to do with sustainable use. It seems to me that your blog post here may be conflating several rather distinct phenomena into one, and labelling it 'sustainable use' in a somewhat inaccurate way.

I would be happy to provide further information or supporting references on any of the above.
Best regards
Rosie

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Chris mercer

11/7/2016 10:45:03 am

Thanks for your considered comments on my blog post. I agree that many debates on conservation are bedevilled by a failure to agree on definitions. By all means send me some supporting references for the points you make. Email info@cannedlion.org

I have given you my definition of conservation in the blog post. How do you define it? And don't say "sustainable use"because that only leads to a circular argument.

Let us take one example of "sustainable use": shooting an elephant in the face for a trophy. I regard that as environmental terrorism, not conservation.

And the CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe is a good example of how unsustainable sustainable use is over a period of time as theory becomes corrupted by the practical problems of African cultures and attitudes to financial mismanagement.
Best
Chris

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Kelly

11/7/2016 11:34:15 am

Well said Rosie.

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Daniel Stiles

11/6/2016 09:23:38 pm

“A return to rigid protection of wilderness and the politically difficult expansion of wilderness areas to allow for the migration routes of old, is the only way to arrest the disastrous decline in unspoiled wilderness and wildlife numbers.”

This is not a new conservation paradigm, it is the old one. This is the paradigm that Kenya, for example, has been trying to implement since 1977-78 when it banned sport hunting and trade in wildlife products. Since it abandoned wildlife utilization, Kenya has lost 80% of its wildlife. It is also the conservation paradigm that has been practiced in West Africa since colonial times. Look how well it has worked.

Is this really the paradigm that should be followed if we want to conserve wildlife?

Furthermore, “rigid protection” involves the use of coercion and force against local populations that live with wildlife. Not only is this very expensive to maintain over the long run, it has proven where employed to alienate communities from conservation goals.

I agree that some types of game farms that exist in South Africa is not what we want to see replicated elsewhere, but I think that people have to have some stake in wildlife, an investment that they can benefit from, for them to agree to allow wildlife to maintain their habitats. And, yes, even to expand wildlife landuse and create corridors.

Wouldn’t it be better to employ a paradigm in which communities living with wildlife willingly agree to conservation, rather than one where they are forced to with the barrel of an anti-poaching gun?

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Chris mercer

11/7/2016 11:20:09 am

You write "since it abandoned wildlife utilisation, Kenya has lost 80% of its wildlife".
In my view this is a perfect example of muddled reasoning and cricket thinking. Let me explain how. I shall state your argument in the form of a syllogism:
Premise 1: Kenya band hunting hen and has lost 80% of its wildlife.
Premise 2: South Africa promotes hunting and has increased wildlife numbers.
Conclusion: therefore hunting is good conservation.

I hope I have correctly summarised your argument.

But the decline in wildlife populations in Kenya has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with reckless human population expansion. After World War II there were only 4 million Kenyans. Now there are more than 40 million most of whom are Rural land dwellers who live in conflict with Wildlife.
The increase in numbers of "wild" life in South Africa includes the 10,000+ game hunting farms where livestock farmers breed selected species for hunting as alternative livestock. This is not conservation. Boasting about an increase in numbers alone of captive animals without taking a holistic view of the industry is as absurd as boajsting about the increase in the number of prisoners in South African prisons and claiming that this proves what a healthy society we are.

So I would take your syllogism above and show how illogical it is by applying it to dogs and cats thus:
Premise 1: all cats have four legs.
Premise 2: my dog has four legs.
Conclusion: therefor, my dog is a cat.
Just saying
Chris.

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Daniel Stiles

11/7/2016 09:28:57 pm

You missed my argument by a long shot. Hunting is not the only type of use that can be sustainable, and I did not mention South Africa. I agree with you, 10,000 relatively small game farms with limited biodiversity is not a desirable form of conservation. I suppose they are better than no biodiversity, but there are other management systems, involving much larger areas, that would be preferable.

My main point is that to keep wildlife on the land, and prevent "reckless human population expansion", the human population must have some reason not to be reckless.

You seem to prefer anti-poaching measures to provide that reason. I don't think this will work, for many reasons. I'm with those who think that sustainable utilization will work better in the long run, but not the twisted caricature of it that you presented. Let people who live with wildlife be investors in keeping it. The challenge we face today is devising ways of allowing that, while avoiding turning the remaining large wild habitats into a bunch of fenced game farms.

I think the sustainable utilization paradigm still has to develop new approaches, all the answers aren't there yet.

Carol Crunkhorn

11/12/2016 04:02:44 am

It's time for us as a species to realise we have no right to be reckless. We need to start educating ourselves in learning how to leave well alone. Human behaviour has proved that nature is the better manager of wildlife as generation after generation of human interference has destroyed so many other species and their habitats, not just in Africa, but globally. We should be re-creating the habitats of wild animals so that nature can restore the correct balance, the balance we humans always 'manage' to destroy; we should do this without expecting any recompense. We, as a species, need to manage ourselves; stop reproducing; stop assuming we have a right to "use"; stop expecting compensation, or as you put it "some reason not to be reckless". The "challenge we face today" is not perpetuating the status quo, it is accepting the unpalatable fact that we must stop reproducing, otherwise we will eventually destroy ourselves. Perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing, but hopefully some of the more deserving species would survive us.

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Derek Ramsden

12/17/2016 05:59:45 am

THE ENDEMIC DISEASE THAT'S INVADING WORLD CONSERVATION :

Conservation throughout the world is no longer what it used to be. Trustworthy people have left, and are leaving, and being replaced by those who are not serving the best interests of our wildlife, our environment, our bio-diversity, and our natural heritage - and under their watch, it's disappearing fast. The highest bidder is king. Criminals are dictating outcomes. We're throwing our resources at the consequences - while sweeping the root causes to the side. Conservation as we once knew it, is going down the proverbial toilet - and is rapidly being replaced by a monster of greed. There is no longer enforced protection of species, preservation, or extension of habitat. Money buys all - including those put in place to protect, and preserve it for 'future generations'. Unregulated wildlife killing, and trafficking in dead, and living wildlife throughout the world is rampant. Their natural distributions, and gene pools are being artificially, and permanently altered, and manipulated for money.

IS CITES & CO. PROTECTING - OR DESTROYING NATURE ?!!

All of this shuffling, and trafficking of endemic species around the world, makes for a complete and utter mockery of conservation and preservation! This is orchestrated destruction of the world's natural bio-diversity - through the Introductions of human & animal borne diseases, and invasive alien species between other parts of the world - upsetting the natural order of cycles, and patterns - altering natural distributions of species - threatening the food sources, habits, and habitats of nature and wilderness. This isn't conservation's proverbial.. it's altering nature to suit man's insatiable greed. True conservation, and protection is about preserving the integrity of indigenous / endemic wildlife, and world environments in it's original state - but instead, they're throwing it all into the wind, and trashing it for a fast buck! We've reached an all time low in nature conservation - it has become akin to an abused milking cow - a money making spree the world over - just an all out scramble for riches in my opinion. CITES & CO. are no longer serving their mandate.. that is, if they ever did :-(